Democrats trying to unseat each other IV

[lpetrich]

Posted without comment.

Like AOC's dancing.

 

[ZiprHead]

Vast majority of firearm homicides are committed using handguns

Thank you for advocating for a handgun ban. I totally agree.

Not advocating that at all. Instead of mindlessly banning guns for everyone, we need stricter rules on who is allowed to buy and possess firearms.
Your position is what NRA types point to when they say that the so-called "liberals" want to grab their guns.

Yes, I want to grab their guns. No sarcams. The US would be a far safer place without handguns in so many pockets. Do you deny this?

 

[Derec]

I believe in holding our allies accountable, even when it's inconvenient. For too long, the United States has let allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia commit egregious acts with American taxpayer-funded weapons.

Israel is defending itself from aggression from Gaza, Hezbollah and Houthis.
Re Saudi Arabia she probably means their actions against the Houthis, who are now illegally occupying large parts of Yemen, and are attacking Red Sea shipping as well as Israel. If anything, US should have given KSA more help against the Houthis early on in that war, not less.
I take it Kat supports the Houthis because they are staunchly anti-Israel. Despite things like this.
Yemen: Huthis ‘suffocating’ women with requirement for male guardians

I am a proud Palestinian-American, but people of all backgrounds and ethnicities should be disturbed by our government's complicity in Israel's 58-year-long illegal occupation of the West Bank and the ongoing attacks on Gaza,

She should be reminded that it was her own people who started this war. And that the West Bank issue could have been resolved already without the so-called Second Intifada, started by Palestinians, and without Gazans using their autonomy since 2005 to keep attacking Israel.

I wholeheartedly support the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza and a permanent ceasefire that sets the stage for peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

A permanent ceasefire, much less reconciliation, is impossible as long as groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are still active. They must be destroyed.
As to releasing all hostages, Hamas will not do that, at least not without too many dangerous terrorists being released from prison.
The latest ceasefire plan proposed by Egypt sees Hamas releasing mere five hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian terrorists. That is a sick joke.

 

[Derec]

The United States has always been a country of immigrants: I'm the daughter of one. I vehemently oppose Donald Trump's insistence on vilifying immigrants and criminalizing their very existence.

There must be a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. There likewise needs to be recognition that 21st century is very different from the 19th, or even early 20th century, when it comes to a sane immigration policy. We needed more immigrants back then.

I do not agree with how Trump is going about implementing this, but neither do I agree about border neglect or the policy that allows millions of people to abuse the anachronistic asylum policies US, and also Europe, have.

Immigration is not just about the economy, it's about basic human rights and dignity.

There is no "basic human right" to come into another country. She seems to be an open borders nut.

The LGBTQ+ community has historically been forced to be canaries in the proto-fascist coal mine and this time is no different. That's why even though Republicans are trying their best to villainize queer (particularly trans) people, we're not going to fall for it. Some Democrats might be happy to throw trans people under the bus for an interview with Steve Bannon, but I'm not.

There needs to be room for nuance when it comes to LGBTQABCXYZ. Disagreeing with the activist classes on things like trans women in female sports does not make one a "proto-fascist". There is also a disturbing nexus between "non-binary" activists and other radical movements, such as opposition to policing.

 

[Derec]

Schakowsky, who is 80 and has held the seat since 1998, "has had a pretty great track record on her voting," Abughazaleh told Rolling Stone. "She's been a good congresswoman, but I want to be better."

Kat does not even live in the 9th district. She lives in the 7th. The congresscritter representing the 7th is one Daniel Davis. He is 83 and was first elected in 1996. Why isn't Kat going after him?

Does JS want to retire? If KA seems like a strong enough candidate, JS might well do so. That's what Nita Lowey did back in 2020. She was 83 at the time, having served for 32 years.  Nita Lowey She died last January.

If she does, I hope Democratic party can do better than Pokemon Girl.

 

[Derec]

How this TikToker running for Congress is designing her campaign for Gen Z - Fast Company

But most voters are not Gen Z.

 

[Derec]

JS won her first general election for her current seat in November 1998, and KA says about that “I wouldn’t be born for another four months.”

And DD, who represents the district she actually lives in, first won his election in November 1996, two years earlier.

Abughazaleh is transparent about the fact that she is not what anyone thinks of as shoo-in for Congress: a 26-year-old narcoleptic freelance social media creator who doesn’t live in the district and has only lived in the state for less than a year, challenging a Democratic Party leader who has represented this part of Illinois for more than a quarter of a century.

A narcoleptic carpetbagging Pokemon. It reads like a joke.

“We are in an emergency,” Abughazaleh says. “Right now, the answer to authoritarianism isn’t to be quiet. It’s not matching pink outfits at a state address.

I agree with her there. That was embarrassing.

It’s not throwing trans people under the bus.

I disagree that expressing more nuanced views and not just blindly parroting everything activists come up with is throwing anybody "under the bus".

(Abughazaleh inherited the mink coat Goldsmith wore to Nixon’s inauguration.)

A mink coat? How very bourgeois.
She has narcolepsy, and she worked for Media Matters until Elon Musk sued MM. As a result, she got laid off, and she has done some pieces for Mother Jones and Zeteo, and she won't even have that income while she campaigns.

“There’s no reason every American should not be able to afford housing, groceries, health insurance, public transit (ideally), and then still have enough money to save and take your kid to the zoo or go to the movies with your friends. There’s just, there’s no reason — we are the wealthiest country in the world,” Abughazaleh says. “The idea that that’s unrealistic or idealistic or naive or even called childish, I think that’s sucky.”

What does she propose concretely here to make that happen? Some form of UBI?

 

[Derec]

Yes, I want to grab their guns. No sarcams. The US would be a far safer place without handguns in so many pockets. Do you deny this?

It would also be a safer place without so many cars. And still, licensing and regulation is a better approach than outright bans.

 

[Derec]

Running for Congress: Day 3 | Kat Abughazaleh for Illinois - YouTube - she acknowledges some shifts in her campaign strategy, and she points out where she lives - a little south of the southeast tip of IL-09 near central Chicago. That's where she and her partner could find an apartment when they moved to Chicago on very short notice. But it's "one bus stop" away.

"One bus stop away" is a weird metric, worthy of r/anythingbutmetric. Distances between stops vary widely from one bus line to the next.
I relented and watched the video. She mentions bus 147, which is an express bus with no stops between Michigan and Delaware and Forster and Sheridan. So, she is being deceptive here, using a misleading metric to pretend she lives closer to the boundary of the 9th than she really does.

 

[Derec]

Not very apparent. He let Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema stymie B3.

What do you mean, "he let"? Biden was no king. He could not make or let Congress do anything.
Congress not passing his legislation does not mean he "wimped out", and he certainly pushed hard for Spendapalooza.

I do. She said that she would govern just like Joe Biden,

And Biden governed very progressively, especially on economic issues and spending. Even Grauniad agrees.
Take another look at Joe Biden. His is the presidency progressives have been waiting for
Bernie agrees.

“President Biden, when he came into office, said that he would be the most progressive president since F.D.R., and I think on domestic issues — not on foreign policy — on domestic issues, he has kept his word,” Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, said shortly after Biden’s loss.

As does the Squad Sergeant AOC.

“When it comes to domestic policy, President Biden probably would go down as one of the most effective presidents that centered the working class,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, told me this afternoon, although she added that she disagreed deeply with him on foreign policy issues such as the war in Gaza.

From: How Biden Surprised Progressives

even about Israel's siege of Gaza,

Note that Gaza attacked Israel, not the other way around.

she used Bidenite campaign managers,

So?

and she kept Tim Walz out of sight after he called some Republican politicians "weird".

Quite the opposite. She selected him largely because of the "weird" quip. He called Republicans "weird" in July, and she selected him for running mate in August. Before "weird" he was not really considered a likely choice, and he wasn't even an option in our veepstakes poll.

She also showed up with Liz Cheney and talked about having a gun. It's almost as if she was trying to get Republican votes.

Yes, she tried peeling off disaffected Republicans and win over independents. Not a bad strategy as such, but she was not a credible vessel for it. She had a history of being one of the most left-wing Senators, ran a very left-wing campaign in 2019, and proposed some lefty spending even in 2024.

Between fake Republicans and real Republicans, voters will choose the real thing. It's like Gavin Newsom appearing in a podcast with Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk - neither side liked him.

And that's your problem. You think that anybody who disagrees with anything with the activist class is somehow a "fake Republican" rather than being a moderate Democrat.

With "moderation" left undefined. I'd like to see actual policies polled on.

Speaking of Newsom at Charlie Kirk, trans women in female sports is a very unpopular issue and a stupid hill for Dems to die on.
NYT poll finds majority of Democrats oppose transgender athletes in women’s sports

Interestingly, I was not able to find an NYT article reporting on their own poll.

(about Kat Abughazaleh)

A Tik-Tok influencer? That's the best Dems can do?

As opposed to a reality-show host?

So Dems should join Republicans in the race to the bottom?
I am sure IL-9 can do better.

Not much of one, since she won't need very big carpetbags to visit her district.

I am also counting the fact that she has lived in Illinois less than a year.

Have you watched any of her videos?

Unfortunately, yes. I relented and watched the video you linked to in post #39.

That's common among right-wingers: acting as if everybody has an upper-middle-class income or an upper-class one.

I am not saying that at all. But with Obamacare subsidies, one does not need an "upper-middle-class income" to be able to get health insurance for example. My point was about her money management, not what her income is.

That was a leaked draft version.

But it illustrates what the drafters had in mind when they wrote GND. And let me repeat that in the more than five years since GND was first proposed, AOC et al are no further in actually having concrete proposals how all their goals are to be done.

It's no worse than self-protectors subsidizing the protection of people who are too lazy to protect themselves.

How so?

Also, making a program universal is a good way of getting support. Means testing erodes such support and it has certain side effects, like having to choose between work income and benefit income. Ideally, one should not have to choose.

But it is not universal. It still has a cutoff, just a very high one. And it is also not universal in that those with children get subsidized by the child-free, even if the child-free make a fraction of the income of those on receiving end of this largess.
Kat the Sexy Pokemon wants to increase these subsidies to "at least" $3k per month, or "at least" $36k per year. That's almost half the median household income (~$80k) just in breeding subsidies. Paid for by yours truly of course.

That's what they want for everybody to believe about them, that they are perpetually on the edge of bankruptcy because of all the drugs that they develop.

Are you denying the fact that it costs a huge amount of money to develop new pharmaceuticals?

 

[bilby]

Instead of mindlessly banning guns for everyone, we need stricter rules on who is allowed to buy and possess firearms.

You mean like literally every other OECD country has?

Sounds good to me.

"Banning guns" is a phrase that immediately indicates excessive exposure to propaganda.

No democratic nation bans guns. They just have strict rules on who is allowed to buy and possess firearms.

 

[ZiprHead]

Yes, I want to grab their guns. No sarcams. The US would be a far safer place without handguns in so many pockets. Do you deny this?

It would also be a safer place without so many cars. And still, licensing and regulation is a better approach than outright bans.

How? Explain it.

 

[ZiprHead]

Note that Gaza attacked Israel, not the other way around.

You act as if that was the first shot of the war.

 

[bilby]

Note that Gaza attacked Israel, not the other way around.

You act as if that was the first shot of the war.

Yeah, before October 7, 2023, the Israelis and Gazans never did anything unkind or unpleasant to each other. They just sat around in circles, holding hands and singing "kumbaya".

 

[Derec]

You mean like literally every other OECD country has?

I think the restrictions in most OECD countries go way too far. Especially regarding use of firearms for self-defense, even inside one's home.

"Banning guns" is a phrase that immediately indicates excessive exposure to propaganda.

Then take it up with Zipr. He advocated for a handgun ban in post #37.

No democratic nation bans guns. They just have strict rules on who is allowed to buy and possess firearms.

As long as the rules are reasonable and are not a de facto ban.

 

[Derec]

You act as if that was the first shot of the war.

It was the first shot of this war. Gaza started it by invading Israel, brutally murdering civilians and taking others hostage.
None of the stuff happening in Gaza now would be happening had Gaza not attacked Israel on 10/7, regardless of your apologetics for Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza that participated in the genocidal massacre on 10/7.

 

[southernhybrid]

We already pay for the cost of drugs being developed. Just sayin'. The drug companies get to screw us over twice when it comes to many drugs.

https://www.levernews.com/americans-paid-11-billion-to-make-drugs-you-cant-afford/

As the government begins its first-ever price negotiations for a handful of medicines under Medicare, the pharmaceutical industry has launched an all-out legal and PR assault on this meager attempt to control out-of-control drug prices for the country’s most vulnerable. Big Pharma reasons that the government has no place
setting prices for the drugs developed by private companies.

But the government, and by extension taxpayers, heavily subsidizes the development of drugs in this country. Now a bombshell new report reveals that Americans funded the development of all 10 drugs up for price negotiations, shelling out a total of $11.7 billion on their research. In 2022 alone, Big Pharma made $70 billion selling those same drugs — and now they want to keep their prices sky high.

According to the new study out of the Center for Integration of Science and Industry at Bentley University, which was published early March, the 10 selected prescription drugsreceived anywhere from $227 million to $6.5 billion in funding from the government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) for crucial, foundational research.

“When the average taxpayer is paying for the drug, it’s not just what’s being paid at the pharmacy,” said Fred Ledley, professor of natural and applied sciences at Bentley and senior author on the study.

Oh wait. We're talking about guns. Inspite of being married to a gun owner, who keeps his guns in a safe place, I hate the fucking guns. At least he never carries anymore, so that's a good thing. We live in an ultra safe neighborhood and we're moving to another very safe neighborhood, so why do we need any guns? Too many people are careless with their guns. Too many kids have been accidentally shot with their parent's guns and too many teens have access to guns. But, we have the damn 2nd amendment so we will never get rid to the guns. I've accepted that.

 

[lpetrich]

26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh seeks to disrupt ‘Democratic inaction,’ announces congressional candidacy Content creator seeks to disrupt ‘Democratic inaction,’ announces congressional candidacy

In the interim between her stint at Media Matters and her congressional campaign, she was a contributor for Mother Jones magazine.

“Obviously her candidacy brings her journalistic endeavors with us to a close,” said James West, executive editor of the Center for Investigative Reporting, which publishes Mother Jones. “But I can see why this would interest her.”

West said that as soon as he had heard Abughazaleh had left Media Matters, he wanted her to write for his outlet, calling her “a singular voice on the internet” where she had amassed a loyal following on social media for her blunt liberal opinions.

As of April 2, Abughazaleh has 231,500 followers on TikTok, and her candidacy announcement had over 12 million views on X.

“I wasn’t surprised,” West said. “She’s got passion, oodles of resilience and grit and has a lot of star power to burn.”

Even though KA has been a social-media star, she has decided to do lots of on-the-ground campaign events.

She officially launched her campaign at Evanston’s Five & Dime Saturday, where she collected menstrual products for The Period Collective, a Chicago-based nonprofit that provides period products to local shelters, transitional housing facilities, schools and food banks.

“There’s a better way we can do this, right?” Abughazaleh said of her goal to implement social justice projects throughout her campaign. “We can’t just keep pissing away millions and millions and millions of dollars on what amounts to various vanity projects.”

She joked that her launch is what conservatives might call a “Tampon Tim thing,” referencing a popular criticism of former Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s decision to provide menstrual products in public school men’s bathrooms.

 

[lpetrich]

emily quinn: "like, i’m just a rando ..." — Bluesky

like, i’m just a rando but do you see the difference?

“the big machine that helped kamala harris blow the election is here with a bigot’s endorsement & a request for cash on Tariff Day”

vs

“in an effort to serve my community, we collected 5600 period products for people who can’t afford them”

Clinton campaigner Jim Carville vs. Kat Abughazaleh

Kat Abughazaleh: "I am UNBELIEVABLY moved! ..." — Bluesky

I am UNBELIEVABLY moved!

Over 130 people attended our first public campaign event and collected an SUV’s worth of period products for Chicago’s Period Collective!!!

Thank you to anyone who came!! If you want to know more about our beliefs + outreach efforts, go to katforillinois.com.

Kat Abughazaleh: "Oh btw, we totaled it all up ..." — Bluesky

Oh btw, we totaled it all up and ended up donating more than 5,600 pads, tampons, and liners to people who can’t afford them

If you came to our event, you made this possible!

 

[lpetrich]

Kat Abughazaleh: "No, the Democratic Party isn't losing because it's Too Woke:" — Bluesky
linking to a video of an interview on CNN and continuing with

This is the type of rhetoric you can expect from me as a Congresswoman. I have no interest in debating fake narratives and human rights.

If you want to know more about my campaign, you can go to katforillinois.com.

"Absolutely Not": How Kat Abughazaleh Rejected Media's Trans Scapegoating
quoting KA:

Democrats deciding that trans people are the reason they lost the election in 2024 — it's ridiculous. It's offensive. And frankly, they are contributing to Trump's authoritarianism.

The transgender community, the queer community as a whole — but particularly the trans community — have often been the first targets in authoritarian and fascist regimes. And that's happening right now. People like myself — people in my line of work, studying, researching, and attacking fascism — have been warning about this for years. And Democrats didn’t listen.

A lot of people stayed home in 2024. And far fewer people voted against Democrats because of “woke” than I think a lot of people assume. A far bigger issue is that we aren’t giving people something to vote for.

So many more people stayed home in 2020 — across almost all demographics — because they didn’t feel represented by either candidate. They didn’t feel listened to by either party. And it isn’t because of vulnerable communities. It’s because these are parties being led by people who are out of touch and don’t listen to their constituents.

Author Parker Molloy then praised KA for not doing what many Democrats are all too willing to do.

What's so powerful about Kat's response to Sciutto is that she refused to play along. When presented with the false choice between supporting trans people and winning elections, she rejected the premise entirely.

Then stating

The reality is that Democrats didn't lose because they supported trans rights; they lost because they failed to articulate a compelling economic vision that resonated with voters across demographics. As Kat so clearly put it: "A far bigger issue is that we aren't giving people something to vote for."